Definition

I should define myself.
I am an aspiring writer, proofreader, knitter, cook, cross-stitcher, crafting genius, book/film reviewer, coastal walker, director, screenwriter, and general all round domestic goddess (remember, I say aspiring, not actual :p). Amongst many other things. I try to teach myself things out of books. I get very very frustrated when I cannot quite make the things that I learn from books work, or when I'm not sure whether they are working in the way that I feel that they should be working. Currently, I am being defeated by purl stitch. I *think* that I'm doing it right. I appear to be doing what the people in the video's and in 'Stitch n Bitch' are doing, and what my mother in her ''oh this is how you purl' do something very fast with some needles and wave your arms around' demonstration, was doing, but at the same time, the result appears to be just more holey wool. And yes, I know that knitting is, by definition, making holes in wool with sticks, but my holes seem to much less orderly that they are meant to be, and it is annoying me.
I just want to be able to make beautiful things, for not very much money. I'd like to be able to make my home beautiful without resorting to cheap Primark/Tesco crap :s Please?

My need for a sugar thermometer..

Everybody says I don't need a sugar thermometer. I really feel that this is untrue. I am currently extremely poor, and about to move, and therefore become even poorer, as I will be working lots and lots less hours, at least to begin with. Therefore, in order to be able to feed myself, and make lovely (and really quite cheap) presents for my disgustingly large family and friendship group, a sugar thermometer really is a necessity. I would like to point out, just as a kind of 'by the way', that I will not be feeding myself solely on fudge, barley sugar etc, but it would be nice to have the option to open a sweetshop if I were to get bored :p
What is more likely, is that I will go totally insane the day I get the sugar thermometer, and make tonnes and tonnes of sweets, which will then have to be posted back to my family, as otherwise I will actually become the 20stone woman, and then after that, it will sit in a cupboard, being mostly unused for most of the year, probably until it gets to Christmas time, and I start having pangs of guilt about the sugar thermometer I told everyone I really really needed and went on and on and on about until they were so sick of me that they gave me one, just to shut me up, and which I have never used since the day that I got it.